Once upon a time, a little girl was born that was exceptionally beautiful. Due to jealousy, a wicked witch wanted her dead. She ended up being raised in fosterage in the forest by magical dwarfs, but eventually the queen found a way to poison her and put her in a coma resistant to aging. Eventually, Prince Charming showed up, kissed the girl and woke her up, and slew the evil witch.

And every day the mirror assures the queen that she was the most beautiful.

Snow White is a beautiful child, however, and when she turns seven, the mirror replies that she, and not the queen, is the fairest. The queen isn't having any of that, so she orders her faithful huntsman to cut out Snow White's heart and give it to her to eat. The huntsman has some trouble with this, so he lets Snow White go and gives the queen the heart of a boar instead.

After some time wandering in the woods, Snow White falls in with a bunch of dwarfs, who let her stay with them in exchange for doing the housework. The mirror tips the queen off to Snow White's continued existence, however, so she disguises herself as a peddler and makes three assassination attempts; firstly by pulling Snow White's corset-laces too tight, secondly by selling her a poisoned comb, and thirdly with a poisoned apple. After each attempt, the dwarfs come home to find Snow White unconscious. While they succeed in reviving her the first two times, the third has more sticking power, and they have to admit that she's dead for good.

She is too beautiful for them to bury her in good conscience, though, so they build a glass coffin and take turns keeping guard. Fortunately for everyone involved, she does not decay, but remains so fresh and beautiful that a passing prince just has to have her. The dwarfs are reluctant at first, but eventually let him take the glass coffin. Thanks to a clumsy servant, the coffin is jolted, dislodging the piece of apple and reviving Snow White. Apparently the prince likes her almost as much when she's awake, and they marry. Hopefully, she's a bit older than seven by now, but you never know.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is one of the best known of the Grimms' stories, although it existed in numerous countries before being compiled into their Children's and Household Tales. It was one of the early victims of their bowdlerising edits; they changed the antagonist from Snow White's biological mother to a Wicked Stepmother.

I suspect that most modern viewers find it easier to identify with a Snow White who fights back. Spending years asleep in a glass coffin waiting to be awakend by "True Love's Kiss" is hopefully not something that girls today aspire to. We can fight for what we want, and we have a good chance of getting it.

Note that this specifically refers to the Brothers Grimm version and adaptations thereof, rather than any of the other fairytales of Aarne-Thompson type #709, "Snow White" (such as "Gold Tree and Silver Tree," in which the Snow White character is married off by her father to get her away from her insane mother, or the memorable version in which Snow White stays with FORTY DRAGONS.)

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and variations contain the following tropes:

Disappeared Dad: Where was the king while the queen was off finding creative ways to kill his daughter? He must have stepped out of the fairytale for a bit.

The intro to the Walt Disney movie says he died. It was changed presumably to explain that very problem (he apparently is still alive but extraordinarily inattentive in the fairy tale).

She's a girl, why should he care? Also, the Queen gives him sex, while his daughter does not (we hope).

There is actually a version of the story where he does everything he can to stop his wife, but it doesn't work. Happily, the King in the Grimm version didn't have to live through such a horrible experience.

The original version does give an explanation: In it, he's the King of England, & his wife's attempts to kill Snow White happen while he's off at war.

Dude, She's Like, in a Coma!: Although, the prince actually thought she was dead. In the original tale, he doesn't kiss her. Instead, he falls in love with her beautiful corpse and takes it home. During the journey, the bit of apple in her throat is dislodged and she wakes up. There isn't the squick of him kissing someone he thought was dead, but it still raises some questions.

Historical Fiction: Gregory Maguire's version called Mirror Mirror takes place in Italy, with Lucrezia Borgia as the wicked witch.

I'm a Humanitarian: The queen eats what she thinks is Snow White's heart. Not her fault it was a cheap knockoff.

Lighter and Softer: Russian version by Alexander Pushkin removes the most gruesome and squicky aspects of the story. The Queen doesn't want to eat her step-daughter's heart - "just" have her left in the forest to die; the prince doesn't fall in love with a corpse - he was engaged to her even before the kidnapping and when he finds her, he breaks the coffin in grief, and she's revived by the Power of Love; and they don't make the Queen dance in red-hot iron shoes (because people don't do such sick stuff in Russia!) and she just dies of spite and envy (or maybe kills herself) after learning that the princess is alive and recovered.

Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The seven dwarfs are short and mine for ore, otherwise there are no other explicitly mentioned traits they seem have in common with dwarfs/dwarves in modern (read: post-Tolkien) fantasy literature.

The 2009 novel Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen makes the Queen the protagonist, and in the process of giving her a backstory addresses such issues as what happened to Snow White's dad, the origin of the Magic Mirror, etc. The Queen becomes evil due to a combination of parental abuse that continues from beyond the grave and the death of the King, the only man who ever truly loved her, and it warps her view of Snow's beauty, innocence, and good nature.

There is also a short story ("Red as Blood" by Tanith Lee) that gives a different view on the matter: the Queen is actually a heroine who recognizes that the King's first wife (Snow White's mother) was a vampire. After trying several tests (seeing if Snow will go near a rose bush, look in a mirror, or take communion), the Queen determines that the princess is a vampire as well and sends a hunter with a cross to kill her before she reaches adulthood and goes off to kill people as her mother did. This does not go too well so the Queen disguises herself as a hag and gives Snow the apple (actually from the flesh of Jesus) which puts her into a coma. The "prince" (implied to be Jesus) wakes her up and turns her into a human girl. Oh, and the dwarves are stunted tree spirits in it.

"Snow, Glass, Apples", by Neil Gaiman, is also told from the perspective of the Queen, who came to realize that Snow White's father died because the little girl was sucking his blood (and otherpartsof him). The queen eventually succeeds in poisoning Snow White with the apple, but the prince who finds her is explicitly stated to be a necrophiliac who wants her because she's dead. The two marry and shut the stepmother up in an oven. The queen is narrating the story while being roasted alive.

The Twisted Fairy Tales collection starts with a take on Snow White. Like the above, it's told mostly from the perspective of the Queen. Unlike the other others here, she is her mother, like in the first version and is still definitely the villain. However, she remains somewhat pitiful, if only because one sees she was once a good person, before she started to lose her sanity and became an evil Vain Sorceress.

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